1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tape print device, and more particularly, to a tape print device capable of setting a character size according to the linage to be printed in each block, thereby a plurality of characters and symbols in each block are printed with the set character size.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,066,152, a tape print device is capable of printing characters and symbols on a tape as a printing medium (for instance, the tape being about 10 mm or 24 mm in width). The tape print device is suitable for printing a file name on a tape to be pasted to the back cover of the file, for example.
However, known tape print devices can not print more than three lines. Moreover, when a tape print device prints two lines, the character size is fixed for two lines. That is, when the tape print device prints two lines, the tape print device recognizes the tape area to be printed as an upper line and a lower line by dividing the tape area into two parts in the longitudinal direction. The conventional tape print device prints characters and symbols with the fixed character size on the upper line and/or the lower line. Moreover, the conventional tape print device does not have a block key for setting the character column according to the linage to be printed.
On the other hand, there is another tape print device having a function for printing characters and symbols in a plurality of lines on the tape.
When the document data stored in a text memory is printed in the desired linage, for example, in two or three lines, the tape print device sets the character size fixed according to the linage to be printed.
Suppose that there are some character columns comprising two lines or three lines. Then, there is an occasion when the tape print device has to continuously print these character columns as a character string. In this case, the tape print device sets the character size so as to be able to print characters and symbols in maximum linage. Therefore, even if the linage to be printed is changed, the tape print device prints characters and symbols with the fixed character size. Then, when the tape print device prints characters and symbols in minimum linage, the character size of the character column comprising the minimum linage is small with respect to the width of the tape. Therefore, there is a problem that the characters and symbols are not printed in a well-balanced arrangement on the tape.